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My unease grew. Why the hell was he saying all this? I had no damn idea—but one thing was for sure. It couldn’t be for any good reason. “There are Cazadors working—”
“There was one. He found no clues, just as the Directorate found no clues. Your mother’s killer might as well be a ghost, for all the evidence he left behind.”
I flexed my fingers, trying to relax, but it didn’t help much. “I agreed to help her if she helped me. I cannot back out of that arrangement.”
Yet, I added silently.
“Not unless you have the help of someone strong enough to rival her.”
And there it was, I thought. The twist in the tale fate just loved applying to make my life even more interesting.
My smile was grim. “I may not know much about the inside workings of the high council, but I do know that if you thought yourself her match, you could challenge her anytime you wanted.”
“I could, but that would be playing by the rules. She doesn’t, so I see no reason for me to do so.”
Wonderful. Another schemer. Just what I needed in my life right now. “If you’re so powerful, how come you’re the daytime manager of a club like this?” I hesitated, then added rather hastily, “No offense meant.”
He waved a hand—an elegant gesture that nevertheless managed to highlight the muscular nature of his arms. “It amuses me to work here.”
And it had the advantage of keeping him out of Hunter’s eye, I suspected. Just as I suspected that this man was the reason for her warning about talking to anyone but the owner.
“Why are you saying all this to me?” I asked, a little hesitantly. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll tell Hunter? Or that she’ll pick the conversation out of my thoughts?”
“Do I fear the former? No.” He leaned forward and crossed his arms on the desk. “As to the latter, she is welcome to whatever remnants she can retrieve past those nano cells. She knows I plot, just as I know she plots. It is a game we have played for a very long time.”
“Well, it’s not one I want to be in the middle of.”
“And yet here you are, right in the middle.”
“Uh, no. I’m working for Hunter on a case, nothing more, nothing less.”
“Hunter intends to use you and the keys to become overlord of the council.”
“And you don’t?”
He smiled. It was quite a pleasant smile compared to Hunter’s, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t as cold-blooded and calculating as she was.
“No, actually, I don’t. I just believe that the council—and the world in general—would not only be better off if the gate situation remained as it is, but a hugely nicer place to live in without her polluting presence.”
A sentiment I could totally agree with—and I had to wonder if he was choosing his words to match whatever thoughts he might be catching.
“I see no point in falsehoods,” he commented, thereby confirming that he was, indeed, catching some of my thoughts. “Especially when Hunter herself is my greatest asset when it comes to convincing others she must go.”
Something else I could agree with. “Look, I’m really not interested in either your plans or Hunter’s. I just want to do what I have to do to get free.”
“Which you will not do without assistance.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I very much suspect asking for your help would simply mean jumping from the frying pan into the fire.”
“Oh, I am far more honorable than Hunter. And I, at least, am sane.”
“If she’s insane, then she’s doing a good job of hiding it.” I didn’t like her. I didn’t trust her. But she would hardly be head of the Directorate and a high-ranking member of the high vamp council if she was off her rocker. The vamps, at the very least, would not have stood for it.
“Oh, trust me, she long ago mastered the art of hiding what she truly is.”
“And you, of course, are a paragon of honesty.”
He conceded that point with a regal incline of his head and a half smile. “Well, you know where to find me if you change your mind. And I very much suspect you will.”
